BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -
On Saturday, admission to Vulcan Park will be discounted by $1 to all guests to
mark a rather momentous event - the reopening of the park and restoration of
the statue that has served as a symbol for Birmingham since its unveiling at the
1904 World's Fair.

The park will be open 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. on Saturday, with
discounted rates for admission to the observation tower and the museum: $5 for
adults, $4 for seniors (65+)/military, and $3 for children ages 5-12, and children
under 5 admitted free.

Much of Vulcan Park
was closed for about five years, starting in 1999, for needed renovations and
restoration, leaving Birmingham without access to its signature statue.

In the late 1990s, inspections revealed severe problems with
the 110-year-old cast-iron statue. Further inspections showed corrosion inside
the structure, where bolts hold together the various parts of the statue.

"The problems are much worse than we originally thought,"
Mark Davis - a consultant hired to inspect Vulcan - told The Birmingham News'
Michael Tomberlin in 1999. However, according to then-City of Birmingham spokesperson
Felyicia Jerald, the statue was not in any danger of falling.

The area of the park around the pedestal was closed in March
of 1999 - Jerald said that closing the park "is a prudent step the city is
taking" to ensure public safety - and a $14-million, five-year renovation and
restoration project followed. It remained closed for five years while work was
done on the property.

The project - which was taken over by the non-profit Vulcan
Park Foundation, founded in 1999 to raise money, handle the restoration, and
manage and maintain the park going forward - included the removal of the 50-ton
statue from its pedestal, a years-long restoration process, and, of course,
returning the restored statue to its place of honor over Jones Valley.

Elements of the 10-acre park surrounding the statue were
also improved. The observation deck and the original pedestal were repaired and
restored, a large education and visitors center was added, the grounds were
improved, among other changes. Vulcan's torch - added in 1946 and used to
denote Birmingham-area traffic fatalities - was replaced with a recast spear
point. The spear point was part of artist Giuseppe Moretti's original version
of the statue.

Steve Yoder, a past chairman of Vulcan Park Foundation, told
the News in 2001 that the park was envisioned as an "urban oasis for the people
of Birmingham." A later foundation president, Stewart Dansby, envisioned the
park during its reopening in 2004 as a "gateway to the entire region."

When the park officially reopened to the public on March 8,
2004, more than 300 visitors - including more than 100 from outside Alabama and
one couple from Canada - bought tickets to the education center and the statue.

An earlier version of this article stated that a torch was added to Vulcan in the 1970s, but this was incorrect. The torch was added in 1946 and used to denote traffic fatalities -- the torch burned green unless there was a traffic fatality, and then it burned red for 24 hours.